---
title: OpenAI provider rules
description: Learn about the rules you need to follow when using the OpenAI provider in Latitude.
---

1. [System messages are not supported in old O1 family](#system-messages-are-not-supported-in-old-o1-family)

### System messages are not supported in the old O1 family

You can read more about the OpenAI message format in the [OpenAI documentation](https://platform.openai.com/docs/api-reference/chat/create#chat-create-messages). Essentially, in older reasoning models of the `o1` family, such as `o1-preview` or `o1-mini`, system messages are not supported. Instead, you need to use `<user>` or `<assistant>` messages. Latitude replaces system messages with user messages. You can always wrap text with `<assistant>` tags to generate assistant messages.

<Info>The official "o1" model works fine.</Info>

```yaml
---
provider: OpenAI
model: o1-preview
---

This is a system message that will be replaced by "<user>" messages.

<assistant>This is an assistant message</assistant>
```
